The latest update on the controversial situation between WWE announcers Mauro Ranallo and Corey Graves suggests that it’s still far from guaranteed that the former will be back on NXT next week after missing both the Survivor Series pay-per-view and Wednesday’s episode of the black-and-gold brand’s eponymous show.
As quoted by Wrestling Inc. , Dave Meltzer said on Thursday night’s edition of Wrestling Observer Radio that Ranallo is in “rough shape” at the moment, with things being particularly bad in the past few days. The veteran combat sports journalist added that there’s no way to determine at this point whether the NXT lead announcer will be able to return to television next week, given that it’s a “day by day thing.”
“It was a very unfortunate situation and we’ve spoken a lot about it. It’s probably worse than we said,” Meltzer said, per WrestlingNews.co .
Meltzer’s new update came one day after Graves took to his After the Bell podcast and apologized to Ranallo for a series of Twitter posts where he made critical remarks about his colleague’s penchant for pop culture references and perceived tendency to overshadow the rest of the announce team. While Graves did not identify Ranallo by name, he explained that he was acting in character as Friday Night SmackDown’s heel color commentator to build on the inter-brand warfare ahead of Survivor Series . He added that he had no intention to offend anyone or cause them “undue stress” through his controversial statements.
As noted by WrestlingNews.co , Graves has yet to delete the tweets where he attacked Ranallo and his manager, former MMA fighter Frank Shamrock. The posts directed toward Meltzer and his Wrestling Observer Radio co-host, Bryan Alvarez, still remain on the SmackDown announcer’s account as well.
The gospel according to the OG. pic.twitter.com/4HISqvcGOV
— Corey Graves (@WWEGraves) November 23, 2019
Although Ranallo’s ongoing struggle with bipolar disorder has been well-documented through the years, a separate report from WrestlingNews.co that also cited Meltzer’s comments on Thursday’s Wrestling Observer Radio suggests that there are a number of people backstage who have taken Graves’ side.
“You got to also remember that internally in the company, he was considered the good guy in all of this,” Meltzer pointed out. “That probably tells you a lot about a lot of things.”
On the other hand, it was also noted that there are people within WWE who have been “very sympathetic” toward Ranallo. These individuals reportedly believe that Graves went too far by criticizing his announcing style on a public forum where other people could pile on him with more negative comments.
